The device is a generic method for accessing the underlying interface
with the native graphics subsystem, typically the X connection or
perhaps the GL context. By exposing a cairo_device_t on a surface and
its various methods we enable finer control over interoperability with
external interactions of the device by applications. The use case in
mind is, for example, a multi-threaded gstreamer which needs to serialise
its own direct access to the device along with Cairo's across many
threads.
Secondly, the cairo_device_t is a unifying API for the mismash of
backend specific methods for controlling creation of surfaces with
explicit devices and a convenient hook for debugging and introspection.
The principal components of the API are the memory management of:
cairo_device_reference(),
cairo_device_finish() and
cairo_device_destroy();
along with a pair of routines for serialising interaction:
cairo_device_acquire() and
cairo_device_release()
and a method to flush any outstanding accesses:
cairo_device_flush().
The device for a particular surface may be retrieved using:
cairo_surface_get_device().
The device returned is owned by the surface.
Originally written by Vladimir Vukicevic to investigate using Skia for
Mozilla, it provides a nice integration with a rather interesting code
base. By hooking Skia underneath Cairo it allows us to directly compare
code paths... which is interesting.
[updated by Chris Wilson]
